Share this

I thought the most powerful line in President Obama's speech was the invocation to "pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and reinvent America," or words to that effect. It was politically necessary to mobilize the nation after Barack had stated so often recently that things won't improve overnight. He needed to return to the energy of reinvention and recreation that was at the heart of his campaign.

That energy--to recommit to making something better out of one's life--is a spirit that has fanned out from his election among those who are not that connected to the African American aspects of his story. This message of renewal also went out to the world, and signaled, his message to groups like Hamas--what you build is what matters not what you destroy. He is going to advocate that the African American story embodied in his assent to the highest office in the world is a narrative others, such as the Palestinians need to embrace if they want to move away from the chaos of fighting violently a battle they cannot win. That other great line from the speech, "what cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath us," not only informs us at home that we need to reinvent ourselves, but also those abroad.

Personally, though, emotionally, I like Rev. Lowery's speech the best, because it allowed some humor in the line, we are working toward an America where "black doesn't have to get back, that brown can stick around, that yellow doesn't have to hear `never,' that the red man [I'm paraphrasing] can have his land and that white can do what's right." This riffing on an old black folk line was funny, apt, and made the president laugh. We need a bit of laughter as well as tears in the next administration, and Lowery's speech was a good beginning.

More POLITICO Arena

About the Arena

The Arena is a cross-party, cross-discipline forum for intelligent and lively conversation about political and policy issues. Contributors have been selected by POLITICO staff and editors. David Mark, Arena's moderator, is a Senior Editor at POLITICO. Each morning, POLITICO sends a question based on that day's news to all contributors.